Author: James Patterson and Liza Marklund

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

ISBN: 978-0-316-08951-7

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Sylvia and Mac Rudolph are a pair of stone cold killers. NYPD detective Jacob Kanon is obsessed with their capture and conviction because his daughter and her boyfriend are among their victims. Swedish journalist/criminologist Dessie Larsson unintentionally becomes Jacob’s partner in the hunt.

At the opening of The Postcard Killers Jacob is already in Berlin tracking “the bastards who are cutting the throats of young couples all over Europe.”

Shortly after a couple is murdered in Stockholm, Jacob—characteristically disheveled and slovenly—intercepts Dessie outside her home. He knows she is linked to the killers by the taunting postcards they have sent her.

Jacob hopes the killers will be apprehended in Stockholm before new murders are committed. Although he has no legal authority in Sweden, Jacob bulls his way into becoming part of the team assigned to the “Postcard” task force. Subsequently, he is involved in the scheme designed to lure the killers into the open, a scheme that is destined to go awry.

The killings continue. As has been the case all along, the killers display the slaughtered couples in grisly poses suggesting well-known works of art—Nils Dardin’s The Dying Dandy; Van Gogh’s Self Portrait; the bust of Nefertiti.

Despite a premature arrest, the Postcard Killers shake off custody in Stockholm and attempt to flee Sweden. Jacob and Dessie are soon in pursuit.

Although the showdown is fraught with violence, certain readers will be—as was I—amused by the location: “…the most northerly IKEA in the world.”

The Postcard Killers is the best of James Patterson’s recent thrillers. Thanks mostly go to Patterson’s co-author, Liza Marklund. A recognized crime-series writer herself, Marklund’s Scandinavian background no doubt has enriched the details of the novel’s northern European setting.

Also bumping up this book’s intensity is the chilling, contemporary role of the Internet; of password-protected websites; of cyber-space criminals networking on a horrific level.

There is one minor feature missing from Postcard Killers—Patterson’s oftentimes mildly humorous chapter titles.

Nevertheless, a newborn leeriness towards vacationing in Europe notwithstanding, this Patterson-Marklund collaboration is topnotch entertainment.

Is Jacob Kanon the protagonist of a new series? I sort of hope not. Sometimes a one trick pony’s performance deserves most applause.